It Is Night In The Emerald City (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

it is night in the Emerald City
I don't know why I am writing you
this letter

the green stars sparkle up ahead
but is this cause for celebration?
there are multitudes onstage

but no one in the audience
and we were standing
so magically by
in April's dappled shade:
waiting for the cue to go on.

yet birds still trill
and in the stillness
golden poems are launched.
who will christen them,
will you?
perhaps you feel
the same way too
about your own.

at night in the Emerald City
it's so hard to sleep:
the Ministry of Nightmares earns its keep
they are codifying everything.

I'm burning down the corner
of another unknown page:
here's fuel for a winter's instant!

last evening from my window
I heard the starry sonnets muted
and bright visions so indicted
that I wept tears of emerald
.
I don't know when they'll
banish this
it could be soon

but I'll love still
from universal distances
in God's own grace and conversation-
we're not locked inside this maze.
I'm certain you'll remember.

performances are overbooked
at night in the Emerald City
you have to call ahead
all iridescence is forbidden
they censure you instead.

I just watch the stars,
not the regime
down to the last bright ember--

mary angela douglas 7 february 2009/rev.11 february 2010; 29 september 2023